One-sided

How many of us are guilty of cracking open our Bibles and looking for God to "tell us something"? How many times do we sit down and hope that He will encourage us with something through His Word? How often do you shuffle through the pages until you find just the right verse for what you're going through?

Often maybe?

Yeah, me too.

I realized last week that I need to get out of the habit of asking Him to speak to or encourage me every time that I open my Bible. Yes, it would be amazing if He would. I think though, that I have begun to lose sight of reading it and searching through it so that I might know more about Him, Who He is, what He does, and how He interacts with those He loves. It had become all about me, me, me... And less about Him, unless He was showing me what I wanted Him to show me. 

It's a selfish view I think, to expect Him to show me something every time. He has done this many times for me, where I will read a verse that is encouraging or convicting. But the purpose of my time with His word is to spend time with Him.

You don't go and meet with a friend just to have them tell you how wonderful you are, how awful you are, or how much you need to change this or that. I mean, you could... But to me that's a wonderful representation of a lousy friendship. In order for there to be a relationship you have to put forth the effort to learn about the other person. In the courtship I'm in right now, we are both learning an incredible amount about each other. If I monopolized all of the conversation, we would get nowhere other than him knowing that I could talk a lot (which granted, I can, and he already knows that). Likewise, if I needed him to constantly affirm me and/or challenge me and I never took the time to sit and learn about him... What is the point of the relationship?

I realized it's the same way with my Heavenly Daddy.

I need to learn about Him. To seek Him out and learn His character. What makes Him happy. What fills Him with joy. What makes Him (righteously) angry. I am here because He created me to worship, honor, and glorify Him. I can't do that to the best of my ability unless I know who He is.

My new challenge each day as I sit down with Him is to ask Him to show me Who He is. If He shows me something that is encouraging through the way, awesome. But for now? It is more about Him and less about me.